Edward Maurer
Director of Security

You’ve likely seen the headlines in recent weeks covering the breaches of these two social media giants in which personal information from 533 million Facebook was made publicly available and data from more than 500 million LinkedIn was listed for sale online to hackers.

What does this mean for your small business?

The biggest concern for your business is ensuring your employees’ personal and professional information, including phone numbers and work/personal email addresses, is not exposed. information can be used by attackers for OSINT (open source intelligence) to leverage information about your employees to launch phishing attacks and possibly spam emails, phone calls, and text messages.

The more information an attacker can access, the more sophisticated the phishing attacks. One of the things phishing attacks rely on is trust. For example, if a hacker has names and other personal information about the people who work (or previously worked) for a company, the more personalized and specific the attacks become. When something appears to be from a trusted source, it’s less likely to be questioned by the recipient. This could lead the intended target to either act on requests for money or gift cards, or open a malicious link, exposing your company systems to malware or ransomware.

Here are 6 ways to protect yourself, your employees and your business:

1. Rotate your passwords on LinkedIn and Facebook
2. Enable Two-Factor authentication either via a third-party application or using the available methods offered by each platform
3. Keep an eye on your credit report. If anything looks suspicious then put a freeze on your credit
4. Educate your team on phishing attacks and to always use caution when online
5. Always check hyperlinks in emails before clicking on them to verify they are from the intended source.
6. Advise employees to watch out for strange behavior or requests from connections within LinkedIn and Facebook. This could include unexpected requests to connect, or links and videos being shared via direct messaging

As a business owner, you should also consider adding additional phishing and endpoint protection as an extra layer of protection. AaDya’s all-in-one platform includes both and even works to help train your front line team members what to look out for.

While it’s impossible to prevent breaches of the social media platforms we all leverage for work and pleasure, there are ways you can protect yourself and your business. As always, the best line of defense is to practice common sense and follow your instincts. If something doesn’t look quite right, it probably isn’t.

If you need additional guidance or support the AaDya security team is here to help. Feel free to email us at inquiries@aadyasecurity.com, or call us at 800.918.9113.

AaDya Security provides smart, simple, affordable and effective cybersecurity software solutions for small and midsize businesses. You can learn more about our all-in-one platform here.